The business world is made of some really bright, innovative 'Change Makers', we all know who they are, I've worked with some really great ones and I'm pretty sure you will have also. 

These are the guys and gals who seem to know 'how to get stuff done' and 'who to go to' so you can 'get stuff done'.

And then there's a lot of other people we look at and say to ourselves 'how the f*@# did you get that job'.

If we're honest we've all come across those kind of people from time to time, and quite frankly they've probably cost you, me, and the company an awful lot of opportunities?

Today, more than ever requires a creative, grounded, and commercial mental agility if a business is to not only survive but deliver a lasting relationship with the consumer.

As you might know I keep a watching brief on China and the luxury sector in order to try and spot ideas and trends that might be of use to the open minded leadership teams in the west.

Here's yet another example of a agile innovation deploying social media as a key 'strategic' part of a much bigger picture.

Farfetch decided to work with its partner Swire Properties as a way to help encourage people to go out again.

What Happened: At a Friday event at the luxury hotel Middle House in central Shanghai, all eyes were on Wendy Yu, the millennial fashion investor. She was dressed in a puffy Magenta couture outfit with ankle hemlines — a creation from Chinese designer Huishan Zhang’s Fall 2020 runway collection. The show brought together hundreds of well-heeled guests from the fashion community who were curious to see a Yu-curated selection of clothes and accessories at Farfetch’s first-ever community gallery.  

Since July, the 13-year-old luxury e-commerce platform has carried over different voices from the fashion world to its Chinese consumers by becoming “the curator of curators,”

A key part of my approach when I work with a company that's either stagnated, or in decline is to see if we can deliver a 'leverage and build' strategy - or in Covid terms 'pivot'.

When it comes to 'social media' I constantly have a similar impression when I talk to C-Suite Executives, who for some odd reason have disconnected themselves from what should be a board level strategy to something that's nothing other than a bunch of unrelated tactics managed by the bright young millennials in marketing, or worse still handed to the agency. 

If your the Logistics and Operations Director for example, you don't simply say to the operations team we need to shift 'x' number of boxes this week. Or if your the Customer Services Director, your brief to the team isn't we need to answer 'y' number of calls this week, if your the CTO you don't say to the development team 'I know, let's come up with something to develop each week' - or do you?

In my experience this is the mindset for using 'social platforms' because its all tactically driven, its just tactics over strategy, and secretly you, your CMO, and your agency really don't know how to measure it, so you're there because of FOMO.

I would call out any business today to articulate what their 'social media' strategy is.

Are they hitting their KPI's, how is it being reported into the business, how often, and if its outsourced to an agency, why?

Guys, this is business 101 and you're missing it big time. 

I am genuinely struggling to evidence that you even have a customer persona in play, so how is that agency, or millennial guy with a beard, or girl with the tattoo in marketing going to know if they're doing the right job or not?.